Shaun Livingston talks NBA Finals on The Jim Rome Show

June 3, 2016 12:46 PM

Shaun Livingston (Photo by Thearon W. Henderson/Getty Images)

Shaun Livingston joined Magic Johnson and Michael Jordan as the only players to score at least 20 points and have no turnovers in an NBA Finals game last night in the Golden State Warriors’ 104-89 win over the Cleveland Cavaliers in Game 1. Livingston joined The Jim Rome Show on Friday and shared where he believes his performance ranked in his career.

“It’s up there, just because of the stage, the magnitude of what’s at stake,” Livingston said. “It’s tough, man. Just because you want to stay locked in, you want to stay in the moment. I’m grateful obviously for my teammates and we took care of business and obviously we have three more to go.”

With both Steph Curry and Klay Thompson not playing their best games, Livingston said he made an effort to be more assertive and aggressive of on the offensive end.

“They create so much attention from the other team and obviously, the game plan is to try to contain those guys,” Livingston said of the Splash Brothers. “For us, I think [Harrison] Barnes, myself, Andre [Iguodala], [Andrew] Bogut, it’s to be aggressive, attacking, taking pressure off of those guys, so then when we’re able to create opportunities, I think it frees those guys up to get hot and go on their streaks.”

Late in the third quarter of Game 1, Iguodala took a shot in the groin from Cleveland’s Matthew Dellavedova. Livingston isn’t sure if it was intentional or not, but believes it ignited Iguodala’s big fourth quarter performance.

“Obviously, you look at the player that he’s been throughout his career, he’s made a couple of questionable plays,” Livingston said. “But at the same time, he could have been swiping at the basketball. But again those types of plays right there can give momentum to teams.

“I felt Andre really locked in, and he was great in that fourth quarter ever sense that play happened.”

Livingston’s head coach Steve Kerr also garnered some attention when he shattered his clipboard with a punch, something the Livingston said isn’t new.

“We’ve seen it before, you know. He gets after it, he gets after us,” Livingston said. “Sometimes I think in the regular season when he did it, I think it was kind of funny to guys cause we were like wow, because we never really seen him that angry. But I mean, in these types of situations he’ll get after us and sometimes we need that spark, and I think he’s great of taking the temperature of the guys.”